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Chapter Text

The war was over.

In Hermione's opinion, the taste of war left a deep desire for life to return to normal. Yet, as each day passed by, the euphoria slowly gave way to reality, that days, where the sun seemed brighter and filled with hope didn't prevent dark, negative thoughts from surfacing now and then, such as what she might say to her parents once they returned home, their memories as well.

It was a strange train of thought to cross her mind as she arrived just outside the Burrow. The sunlight lit up the Burrow, reminiscent of the times before the war, of a childhood filled with light and laughter ready to swallow up the welcomed guest in genuine warmth didn't help. Something felt off, like an illusion, as she arrived just outside the gate before heading up the path. And as her hand came within inches of the doorknob, there came a realization that something about the Burrow was different.

She didn't know how long Hermione stood there; her thoughts only stirred when she heard Harry speak up from behind. "I'm rather glad to see the Burrow again."

Hermione turned her head so she might look at him, noting she'd not heard the sound of him Apparating. "Does something feel different?"

"Well, the Death Eaters attacked the Burrow on the wedding day. So there might be something different," Harry said, stepping closer and reaching out for the doorknob from which she'd already lowered her hand, only to pause as she did, frowning. "Maybe it's because he's not here. Fred, I mean."

Without hesitation, Harry reached out for the doorknob, twisting the knob to open the door. And then--

Mrs. Weasley didn't hesitate in hurrying forward to greet them with warm hugs, just as she had done before the war, even at Bill's wedding to Fleur. Hermione closed her eyes, welcoming the warmth of kindness radiating off Mrs. Weasley despite what the family matriarch had lost. Hermione took a deep breath, letting the smells of the Burrow invade her nostrils. Hermione's eyes remained shut as she took in the familiarity of it all while noting the feeling that something wasn't right. 

"Care for something to eat?" Mrs. Weasley said as she bustled the two into her kitchen, her smile as bright as Hermione remembered.

Hermione opened her eyes, watching Harry smile at Mrs. Weasley apologetically. "Sorry, but we've plans for lunch."

"Ah. Yes, I remember," Mrs. Weasley turned away, heading towards the stove as her smile faded. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, feeling guilty even though they shouldn't, as Mrs. Weasley sighed. She then turned her head, looking over her shoulder as they both took seats at the table to wait for Ron and Ginny to come downstairs. "It's alright."

"Is it?" Hermione asked, still feeling guilty, knowing full well Arthur and Percy found themselves busy with work at the ministry. Charlie—Hermione didn't know what he was up to beyond whatever he was doing involving dragons. Bill and Fleur had their own place. And--

Harry glanced upstairs. "Is George eating?"

"Nowhere near as much as a mother would like."

And there it was, the reality hanging over the Weasley household.

Hermione looked down at the table and her fingers, realizing just how off it felt not to hear something from upstairs coming from the twins' room. She glanced up at Harry and thought he might be thinking the same thing: Mrs. Weasley asking if they wanted something to eat had more to do with George than anything.

As if on cue, a familiar face appeared. George startled upon realizing Hermione and Harry were there, his eyes seeing empty as if he were far away mentally. Not that Hermione blamed George for feeling the way he did. " At least I'll be getting my family back. I mean, maybe. "

"How are you?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

George shrugged his shoulders in response before sitting down at the table. The silence was--

Hermione glanced away, unsure of what to say. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs. Weasley place some of the food she made onto a plate before setting it in front of George. Turning her head slightly, she watched George pick up a spoon, moving the plate's contents around before setting the utensil down. Her mouth pushed together, her head darting up to look at Harry, who seemed just as confused as she was regarding what they should say to George.

A thundering sound came from the stairs, indicating Ron would appear soon, reminding Hermione that he still hadn't passed the Apparition test. He smiled at them, not noticing George—silent as he was, sitting there with them. "Ready to go?"

"And what about Ginny?" Hermione asked.

The warm smile on Ron's face left, his face scrunching up in dismay as he looked up the stairs. "She's probably still trying to get ready." 

"Obviously," George muttered, catching Ron off guard.

Ron stared at his older brother for a few minutes as George stared at the food in front of him. Eventually, he turned toward Hermione and said, "I don't understand why you girls must take so long to get ready. It's plain barmy."

Hermione swallowed, remembering the Yule Ball while telling herself Ron didn't mean to--

"You're really good at sticking your foot into it, aren't you, Ron," George said, sitting up straight. The empty look in his eyes was replaced with a rather dark look. "Fred and I gave you that book, and you still don't get it?"

"George," Hermione cleared her voice.

George startled, looking her in the eye right before swallowing. He glanced away. "Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing to her? I'm the one you tried biting the head off of," Ron frowned.

His older brother flinched, then muttered as he looked away, "Sorry."

"I still don't understand what I did wrong," Ron said. "Well, it doesn't take you that long to get ready, does it, Hermione? I mean, you don't care about that kind of thing like other girls do."

Hermione stared, unsure of what to say. Thankfully, Ginny's arrival interrupted the awkward silence. "I'm ready," she said before glancing over at George. Without hesitation, she walked over and hugged him, leaning her head against that of her older brother as she did so. "Be sure to eat something, and don't worry, mum, George."

George glanced away, not responding.

"Do take care, George," Hermione said, smiling at him even though he didn't look her way. "We do care, you know."

~

Lunch started well enough despite the way her thoughts drifted to worrying about how George was doing while wondering if the others thought the same thing. Ron side-Apparated with her to a place near the cafe they'd chosen for their double date. And then--

"Aren't you supposed to be returning your parent's memories today?" Ginny frowned, her head tilting as she thought of a different topic from what they'd been discussing.

"That's today?" Harry asked from where he sat across from Hermione.

"Yeah, that's today. The Ministry of Magic finally tracked them down, and I'll be meeting up with them at my parents' home," Hermione said, her mouth twisting into a smile, the euphoria from the war ending returning even with the doubts crashing through her head regarding how her parents would react to learning she'd erased their memories. "It will be good to see them again and introduce them to Ron."

"Wait," Ron's head jerked up from his food. "You want me to go with you?"

Hermione's entire body tensed, and she looked at Ron. "Well, I was hoping you would. I mean, we had discussed it that I would be returning my parents' memories."

"This isn't how I wanted to meet your parents," Ron said.

Which was fair, yet the comment still stung. "I was hoping for your support."

"I know, but," Ron said, shaking his head. "This is rather sudden, Hermione."

"Sudden?" Harry frowned. "Even though I didn't know she'd be returning her parents' memories today, Hermione's been talking about doing that since we defeated Voldemort. And it's important to her. Surely she told you when it was?"

"Yeah, but I was hoping not to," Ron said.

Hermione startled, sitting up straight as she stared. " He means he was hoping not to meet them today, but I can't blame him, as it would have been very awkward meeting them right after I returned their memories. "

"Did you just say you don't want to meet Hermione's parents?" Ginny asked.

But before Hermione could interject--

"Well, no."

Harry frowned. "Really, mate?"

"What?" Ron looked at the others in confusion.

"Your sister just asked you if you wanted to meet my parents?" Hermione said. "I mean, you do want to eventually meet them, right?"

"But I have met them," Ron said. "And it's not as if we're going to interact with them very much, so we need to rush into it. Plus, Hermione returning her parents' memories and saying, 'hey, this is my boyfriend,' feels super weird."

"It's alright," Hermione said. "But he's right that it would be a rather awkward to introduce him as my boyfriend to my parents." She frowned. " And the rest of my family—the family I've not told them about. I mean, taking my parents to Diagon Alley was a disaster. "

"It's not alright," Ginny said. "I mean, Ron is right in saying it would be awkward for him to go, but you should still have some kind of support."

"Ginny and I could go," Harry offered.

"No," Hermione straightened up. "There are, I think, some thoughts I need to sort through. I mean, it's true that all of you have met my parents the summer before our second year—Ginny's first, but you've not really met my family. And my parents—they're not my only family."

"You didn't just erase the memories of your parents?" Ron asked, frowning, scowling.

"I lived with my parents," Hermione said. "So the Death Eaters would have found them if they came looking for me." Although, in the back of her mind, she wondered if she'd done enough interacting with her own family before the war starting and definitely not after—not when certain things changed that summer. There was a level of euphoria resulting from getting to return her parents' memories, from thoughts of things returning to normal, fading.

And there was no use dragging it out. Lunch was finished quickly after that, with the unexpected turn in the conversation dampening the mood. Ron left with Harry and Ginny, and she Apparated to her parents' house.

As she looked around, there was a light layer of dust over everything, which wasn't surprising given a year having passed since anyone entered the home, including her. In some ways, she was thankful, as it meant the Death Eaters didn't even think of coming here, yet the Death Eaters and Voldemort underestimating their enemies didn't mean it couldn't have happened. She dragged a finger over the dust before pulling her wand out to use a cleaning spell.

With the dust gone, she looked up at the pictures on the wall, of her mother with her straight brown hair and brown eyes—like her, and her father with black hair and gray eyes smiling out of the pictures of Hermione and--

Hermione wasn't their only child, yet she remembered when she left for Grimmauld place, her parents sent her younger sisters away to a relative in France. However, her parents didn't go into detail regarding their reasons for doing so despite how odd it felt not getting the chance to learn whether her youngest sister was magical. And she missed Jules despite how trying the youngest Granger could be.

As for Elizabeth, there was a bitterness to their parting, with Elizabeth being in denial about being magical along with the two of them not getting along, with their last conversation involving Elizabeth chewing her out for not caring, for spending so much time away from the family., particularly after the negative experience their parents had the summer before Hermione's second year. Jules might forgive her for erasing their parents' memories, but Elizabeth, should she ever find out--

Hermione let out a sigh, slowly heading through each room and doing a quick cleaning spell to remove the dust, stopping to linger in the bedrooms of her family members, including her father's room, which was used when he needed to retreat from the world, which made sense given the how the room was above the second flight of stairs, in the attic away from all the commotion downstairs.

The sound of someone calling out from downstairs made Hermione startle, and she headed down to see someone from the ministry there with her parents, along with someone from St. Mungos, in case the removal of the spell might go wrong. There was a definite look of confusion on their faces, but in the back of her mind, she wondered if there would be similar confusion, if not worse, when she returned their memories.

She started with her mother and watched Olivia Granger blink back the chaotic confusion of having her memories return and step over to her father. "Hermione, what's going on?"

"I'll  explain everything when I return his memories. " Hermione lifted her wand to start the process and--

Chapter Text

One minute, Hermione stood there, attempting to return her father ’s memories, and the next—

Hermione ’s eyes opened and closed, taking in the hand of what looked like her elven-year-old self out, no wand in hand. Her parents were no longer in sight, but the Granger household's well-loved furniture was inexplicably less well-loved. Her eyes blinked, looking at her pale blue pajamas from her youth, while her head spun slightly at the unexpected whatever-it-was magic.

Her ears discerned the clinking of dishes and pans coming from the kitchen as well as the smell of food cooking while the sunlight coming through the windows certainly wasn ’t the same, indicating a different time of the day as she continued frowning at her sleeve, completely unable to wrap her mind around what just happened, let alone how she should react to the situation.

“What?” Hermione’s eyes closed. “What is going on?”

Her eyes opened upon hearing the sudden squealing of delight of her youngest sister who tore down the stairs in her own pajama set, tiny compared to what Hermione remembered, while also noting she ’d forgotten how ear-piercing Jules squeals were at the age of five or six, the age Hermione guessed her youngest sister to be in the whatever-it-was magic that was going on. Still, as she attempted to take in the strange magic that unfolded before her, she found herself concerned and confused.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione walked into the kitchen and saw her mother lift Jules into one of the kitchen chairs while her father cooked breakfast. Jules reached out to grab a utensil in each hand as Elizabeth sat at the table, her mouth twisted into a frown as she glared at their younger sister. “Does she have to be such a nuisance in the morning?”

“Hey,” Hermione said, reacting instinctively as she always did when Elizabeth came down on Jules for doing nothing wrong, yet all she could manage to get out was, “Be nice.”

Her father looked up at her then, grinning ear to ear as locks of black hair curled around his ears; his silver-gray eyes sparkled. “Good morning, Baby Girl? How are you this morning?”

“Fine,” Hermione muttered, unsure of whatever else she should say. Her head tilted slightly, confusion setting in, yet she took a chair while wondering how to deal with the situation. “The Ministry of Magic strictly forbids time travel, yet is this time travel? Time travel doesn’t regress a person in age. If anything…”

“Earth to Hermione.”

Hermione ’s eyes blinked, her father’s voice returning her to reality, or the reality she now found herself in, which might, in turn, be an illusion, one her mind didn’t know how to break her out of. “Yes?”

“How many pancakes do you want?” he asked.

“Uh,” Hermione’s eyes blinked, trying to remember her portion size from when she was eleven. “Three?”

“Alright,” he said. “And you princess?”

“I told you!” Elizabeth wined. “Don’t call me that!”

“Please don’t throw a tantrum, Elizabeth,” Hermione’s mother said. “You’re nine now, so you can ask your papa politely not to call you that.”

“Wait,” Hermione thought to herself.

“But he never listens,” Elizabeth pouted as their dad set pancakes before her. “And please stop with the smiley faces! I’m too old.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Hermione’s dad muttered as Hermione frowned.

“If Elizabeth is only nine, I can’t be eleven. Not if it’s summer. When am I?”

“Hermione?” Her dad asked. “Baby Girl? Are you alright?”

Hermione ’s eyes blinked while she looked up at her father, grinning ear to ear. “I’ll take a smiley face with the other two pancakes on the side, please.”

“Sure can do,” her father said while Elizabeth glared at her.

Hermione let out a deep breath. “ The last person I want to worry about what is going on is my dad. ”

~

The outside world—

Sounds certainly carried through the walls at the Burrow, with parents and siblings going about their lives as if certain things never happened.

“That’s not true. They’re just as affected by Fred’s death as you are,” George thought to himself as he lay there in the dark bedroom, trying not to think about what went on outside the world, yet his mind still found the need to process what went on outside of his dark room, such as how Ron earlier complained about girls taking to much time to get dressed, among other things, such as—

“Mum said you didn’t eat anything again,” Ginny said from the doorway, allowing herself entrance when George hadn’t responded.

“I ate a few bites,” George muttered, covering his eyes. “Isn’t that enough, Gin?”

“You know it isn’t,” Ginny said.

He uncovered his eyes and turned onto his side, tucking the arm from that side as a pillow as he looked at her sister. “Care to share some good news, such as your lunch with Harry and Hermione going well?”

Ginny smiled at him, her eyes dancing to another part of the room. “Well, lunch with Harry and Hermione went well enough.”

“But?”

She took a deep breath, then closed the door behind her. “Can you promise me none of this gets back to Ron?”

George pushed himself up slightly, “Depends. What’s bothering you?”

He patted the bed, indicating she should come and sit. Ginny walked over and sat down, taking a deep breath. “So, Ron wasn’t being supportive of Hermione at all.”

“That’s not exactly something new,” George said, frowning. “But I guess I should be asking what he did this time?”

“Hermione’s returning her parent’s memories today, and Ron blew her off,” Ginny said. “About going with her, but meeting her family.”

“He doesn’t want to?” George asked, looking at his youngest sibling in the dim light.

“That’s the impression I was left with,” Ginny said, frowning. “Hermione said everything was fine, that Harry and I didn’t have to go with her, but I really think…”

“She really wanted Ron’s support?” George rolled onto his back, sighing and covering his eyes. “Bloody Merlin. Fred was always better at this than me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” George said. “I guess I’ll have to have a talk with Ron later?”

“I thought I asked you to promise none of this would get back to Ron?”

“I said it depends,” George said, continuing to lay there, covering his eyes. “I don’t see his relationship lasting if he keeps putting his foot in his mouth.”

“Give Hermione way more credit than that,” Ginny said. “She’s willing to put up with quite a bit, you know.”

“She shouldn’t have to, though,” George said, uncovering his eyes so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “I guess she’s the one I have to talk to.”

“I don’t think Ron’s going to take well to you are sabotaging his relationship,” Ginny said.

“Ron is doing that enough on his own,” George muttered, feeling a headache coming on. “But Hermione shouldn’t have to put up with certain things, and Ron’s attitude towards her family is one of them. I mean, we’d all be upset if Hermione didn’t want to have anything to do with us?”

“I think he’s just uncomfortable with it because they’re Muggles,” Ginny noted.

“Ron needs to get over himself,” George muttered, mentally wishing Fred was here so they could tag-team the situation. He swallowed.

“Hey,” Ginny said. “It’s getting stuffy in here. You should open a window and let some fresh air in. Or at least pull the curtains back to allow yourself some light.”

“Don’t,” George said. “I’ll do it later when I don’t have such a blasted headache.”

“You wouldn’t have that headache if you ate properly,” Ginny noted. “And if you didn’t sleep all day.”

“I know, I know.”

“So if you’re not up soon, I’ll have no choice but to intervene,” Ginny said.

George grunted, only for Ginny to respond by placing a light, familial kiss on his forehead before squeezing his shoulder and leaving. Mentally, he brushed her comment aside, thinking the intervention would be a ways away, when—

“Gin!” George snapped as light from the window streamed in. He started sitting up, saying, “Didn’t I tell you…”

He froze a figure silhouetted against the window, staring at him while their red hair glowed at the edges as the sun cascaded past. George ’s eyes blinked, noting in the back of his head the person in front of him was too small for any of his siblings as his fingers clenched the bedding next to him.

And he stared, eyes blinking as his head continued hurting.

“George?”

George swallowed, his mind registering who the voice belonged to, panic setting in, his mouth opening and closing.

“Are you alright? You look like…”

Instinctively, George bolted from the room to the closest bathroom, slamming the door behind him and emptying his stomach into the toilet.

“Hey, George,” the other person said

“Go away,” George said, closing his eyes as his body reacted negatively to the sudden shock.

“George, are you okay?”

“I said go away, Fred!” George said, mentally wondering what his family could think of his current mental state of seeing a dead person as he began to sob and shake.

“I’m going to get mum,” Fred said, using a tone of concern as he spoke.

George kept his eyes closed, spewing more of the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

~

A pair of silver-gray eyes looked into a mirror. Small hands reached up to touch pointed ears, fingering them gently as locks of black hair cascaded and framed the delicate features. The tiny fingers touched the tips of the ears as mental confusion set in. A soft, gentle voice spoke. “A nightmare?”

Hands lowered, silver-gray eyes continuing to look at the mirror as elven lips pushed together, the Elfling in the mirror quite unsure of the world around him as he looked at his reflection. A finger reached up, latching onto the locks of hair, taking in how long his black hair was as a shiver ran down his spine.

Light flickered into the dark bathroom, allowing him not to turn on the lights, to stare at his reflection as the confusion continued. His mouth opened, yet—

“Elenian?” a voice called out from downstairs. “Elenian, are you up yet?”

Elenian turned, the sound of the voice bringing some relief, the nightmare of the night before seemingly behind him and gone. “Yes, Ada. I’m up already.”

“Then come down and join me for breakfast.”

“Yes sir,” came the response as Elenian turned towards the door, turning the doorknob as his mouth pressed together. “Perhaps the nightmare won’t ever come true,” while also thinking, “Let’s not worry, Ada, about last night’s dream.”

Chapter Text

“I’m coming!”

Yet—

“I shouldn’t be coming. I shouldn’t be here,” Harry thought to himself, ultimately recognizing the cupboard he found himself in, knowing exactly where he was yet not understanding why.

The cupboard meant he ’d never learned about magic. Never learning about magic meant never finding a home at Hogwarts or with the Weasley family, let alone a future for himself. Defeating Voldemort never happened, nor did—

The sound of Dudley hopping up and down the stairs made Harry wonder if today was Dudley ’s birthday all over again, which in turn would mean going to the zoo and speaking with the snake all over again. “ Dudley will still be Dudley-from-back-then rather than the Dudley-from-now. ”

Harry let out a sigh.

“Don’t think of this place as not home because you know what Dumbledore said,” Harry lectured himself, stepping out of the closet to the bright world outside, living in his baggy hand-me-downs. “That said,” a thought crossed his mind, remembering Dudlsey-from-now having changed. “I think I would have liked to see where our relationship went after the war. I don’t expect it to have been on the best terms, but I’ve got to give Duds credit for attempting to act like family.”

And—

“It also means he can be a better person.”

The thought brought a smile to Harry ’s face as he headed into the kitchen. Vernon glanced up, the corner of his mouth twitching. “What are you smiling at?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders, going about his work at making breakfast while Petunia fused over Dudley as she only did. “Nothing.” And then, for some reason, he said, “Just thinking what a wonderful cousin I have.”

The response from the Dursley family was priceless as they stared at him. He continued working at the breakfast, amused at the knowledge only he had regarding how Dudley attempted to reform, a glimmer of strange hope in the odd situation he found himself in.

“I really need to figure out what is going on, but I’m completely cut off from magic if I’ve time-traveled,” Harry thought. “And it might not even be that.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

Harry was startled, turning to look at his Aunt Petunia, realizing the entire Dursley family was still staring at him. “What?”

“Are you,” Petunia said, swallowing. “Feeling alright?”

“I’m perfectly fine, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said, continuing to cook, latching onto that one thing—of Dudley becoming a better person and how he could, if he’d found himself thrown back in time, work with that mainly since magic was—

“Boy!”

Harry turned his head, pushing up his eyeglasses again as Vernon lowered his newspaper, red in the face. He sucked in a ton of air. “ So much for that, I guess. ”

“Did you have anything to do with this?” Vernon said, slapping the paper with one hand, while Petunia looked on, confused, and Dudley grinned ear to ear, amused that Harry was getting in trouble for something, although Harry wasn’t sure what yet.

“I don’t know what this is,” Harry responded, wondering if his response might come across as flippant, to which he added. “And I’m just being honest about that.”

“This book!”

“What book?” Harry frowned. He shook his head, turning back to the breakfast.

“This book was written by Andrea Vaugoore Podzol!” Vernon said as Petunia went over to peek at whatever Uncle Vernon was looking at.

“Who?” Harry asked if Andrea Vaugoore Podzol might be behind his current predicament. He saw his Aunt Petunia’s eyes widen, and then she looked up at him, but that look on her face he knew to be the it-involves-magic look of horror. He frowned, still confused, when Vernon got up, grabbed his arm, and hauled him over to the cupboard and shoved him in there.

From inside his cupboard, he could hear his aunt and uncle talking rather loudly about “what the neighbors will think” and “what we are going to do.” Then, he heard loud thundering on the stairs as individuals headed up them, right before hearing Dudley screaming something about his spare room. Harry frowned, knowing full well his letter to Hogwarts hadn ’t come yet—

The door opened, and Vernon said, “You’re moving into Dudley’s second bedroom.” He shook his finger at Harry, a stark contrast to the nervous manner in which his Uncle had reacted when the letters came. “And you will not speak to the neighbors about staying in the cupboard.”

“But I like my cupboard.”

The response made Vernon ’s eyes almost bug out as Dudley bawled about Harry taking over his room.

Harry took a deep breath. “You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”

“Of course not!” Vernon said. “What would the neighbors think if they found out?”

Harry opened his mouth before clamping it shut, thinking back.

Neighbors rarely, if ever, came over. Instead, the individuals were Uncle Vernon ’s business associates and their wives, such as Mr. And Mrs. Mason.

He shrugged, heading into the room as Dudley continued to wail, not caring about getting Petunia and her family in trouble. He sat there, taking a deep breath, noticing differences in the room, such as how there was no broken video camera as there was before. He let out a deep sigh. “Well, this is interesting.”

~

“We can finally get things cleaned up,” his mother murmured, hand on Draco’s shoulder.

The corner of Draco ’s mouth twisted up, knowing what Narcissa meant, yet knowing what she meant, “ I ’m not sure I want to return to that place. ”

The Malfoy family home, after all, was used as a base of operations for a certain Dark Lord who treated the place as if it were his own, to the point of forbidding Draco ’s parents from repairing the damage to the drawing room after Dobby helped Potter and company to escape.

Long before that event, the family home became a bleak place to be, yet in one part of Draco ’s head, he couldn’t help but wonder if the family home ever really felt like a home. The sight of their former House Elf—

“I wonder what happened to him after,” Draco wondered.

A fondness existed for the House Elf, who ’d been a part of most if not all, of his childhood and a level of guilt. Draco swallowed, remembering how—Dobby’s sudden freedom from their family became another thing he disliked Harry for, the loss of his father’s servant, as Lucius was prone to say in his rants about the matter. Yet, there was also the guilt, the realization that Dobby had good reason to prefer Potter over himself.

“Perhaps this place became bleak when Dobby left, or perhaps it’s always been this way,” Draco thought. “After all, I was raised believing things I no longer believe.”

“What’s going on in that head of yours, dear?”

Draco stiffened, turning to look at his mother, his mouth twisted into a frown. A part of him wanted to ask, even though he was still attempting to figure out what he actually believed, “ What if my beliefs no longer align with yours and father ’s? ”. He remained silent, unsure what the reaction would be. “Nothing,” and then, turning his head to look at the broken chandelier. “I guess the House Elf?”

Narcissa glanced over, letting out a slight hum as she kept her arms folded before saying, “How do you feel about that?”

Draco shrugged his shoulders, feeling slightly ill at the forbidden thoughts, knowing fondness for the creature was forbidden, that there was an expected way to feel and think in the Malfoy household, a way to act. He swallowed, remembering not treating the House Elf kindly, not wanting to think of the implications. “It’s confusing, to be honest. His behavior, I mean.”

Narcissa turned her head as she walked to the window to look at the garden. “I’ve got an idea whose to blame for his behavior.”

“Potter?” Draco said.

“No, not him, but perhaps he was right. After all, we never had this kind of trouble with House Elves in the Black family.”

“What are you talking about?” Draco asked, only—

His mother wasn ’t there.

A pair of gray eyes blinked in confusion. Draco stepped toward the window his mother stood in front of moments before. The room, in turn, for some reason, felt suddenly more significant than the already massive room felt just moments before. Yet, his head turned, eyes blinking again, taking in the lack of destruction as if a sure House Elf had never caused the chaos within the house.

Draco opened his mouth, filling his lungs with air as he took a step backward, stumbling and falling onto his bottom as if his legs didn ’t want to move the way he wanted them to, as if—

He wasn ’t sure as he sat there, eyes blinking, hands on the floor, feeling the sting of having landed as he had, looking at a pair of all too-small feet.

The first instinct—

—to let out an undignified scream.

Yet, Draco clamped small hands over his mouth before such a thing could happen, his small frame shaking, knowing the last thing he needed was Lucius to see him in such an undignified manner or as mysteriously small as he now was.

He didn ’t, however, move, shaking too much while his mind didn’t know what to do.

And then—

“Is young master alright?”

Draco turned his head, gray eyes widening at the sight of—

—the sight of Dobby, as if Dobby never left.